Graphic systems or editors allow the creation of multiple-page graphic documents in an electronic medium. The format of a document, such as character type or size or line spacing, can be electronically changed. Text or pictures can also be incorporated into the graphic document. It is frequently desirable to print such graphic documents with various layouts. Graphic editors offer several printing options to the user such as a full page printing, a portrait or a landscape printing orientation to name a few.
However, a specific requirement with the graphic editors is to print documents in a booklet format where the sheets of paper are printed on both sides, each side having two pages printed on it. The printed booklet may be later folded and assembled to form a small book, for example, a booklet recording a speaker's presentation.
It is of course obvious that to form a final booklet from a series of original pages, it is desirable to place the original pages in a particular order so that the booklet, when assembled, will maintain a logical reading order.
In conventional printing systems, the booklet is obtained either after printing several times an original page or by rotating a page to be printed in several orientations. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,852,487, 5,183,347 and 5,973,721 illustrate some of such prior art solutions which result in complex and long printing apparatus requiring manual human intervention.
Therefore there is a need for a method and system to easily and rapidly print in a booklet format documents that are created with a graphic editor.